


So Long

by Deannie



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode: s01e20 The Siege (2), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2013-06-24
Packaged: 2017-12-16 01:13:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/856082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world needed to stop buzzing...</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Long

**Author's Note:**

> _Takes place at the end of "Siege II."_

The world needed to stop buzzing. It buzzed and it buzzed and the sound of people shifting in their seats, waiting for the end--waiting for the last-minute save that John had made them come to expect--was irritating and painful but not as painful as the voice in his head that cycled over and over saying “So long, Rodney” in quiet, defeated, fatalistic tones and he could feel Carson’s terror boring through the back of his head as the doctor contemplated John’s soft comment that his idioticselfishmessianic sacrifice might have to be repeated and Carson had the Ancient gene, undiluted and pure and scaring the shit out of him because he knew--he _knew_ \--that he’d be the next to go and Rodney didn’t want anyone to go, sure as hell not John, because John was vital. John was alive and needed and part of the city that they’d stumbled into without one real thought to the consequences and John fit in like a piece that Atlantis had been missing for millennia and he had to survive because if he didn’t, they were all royally screwed and the world really needed to stop buzzing around him because Rodney was going to scream in a minute and that would only prove to everyone that they were already dead--that they were just waiting for the world to end symphonically around them. And he knew he was hopped up on stimulants and hadn’t slept in more than a week and hadn’t eaten more than a PowerBar in the last day and was teetering on the edge of an all-consuming hypoglycemic reaction and was bound to be a little emotional but he wanted to cry anyway, because he was suddenly remembering the feel of ivory piano keys under his fingers and the joy he’d always felt when he played, until Mr. Ticknor told him that he’d never be any good and he decided that he’d rather be good than happy and he threw himself into science and now he was proving himself a complete failure at that as well and he wasn’t going to cry because he didn’t want to scare the rest of them, who couldn’t hear the buzzing of the world and the whispered “So long, Rodney” and the terror from Carson that added a minor third to the buzzing and _oh God_ , John was talking again. He was going in. He was going to die. He was going to leave. And he hadn’t even really said goodbye, just “So long, Rodney” like he was going to the bathroom and would be back in a second but so long really was _so long_ and Rodney didn’t think even John could calculate the time it would take before they saw each other again because John was going to die and Rodney didn’t believe in Heaven and even if John got there Rodney never would and the world buzzed around him and he knew that there was a Hell and he was in it and that meant that maybe, maybe, there was a Heaven, too, because for every action there was an equal and opposite reaction and maybe John would go to Heaven but Rodney wouldn’t be there and so long was going to turn into forever in about two minutes and Elizabeth was saying something to Radek and Rodney remembered that Radek had lost his wife and daughter in a different galaxy in a different country in a war that wasn’t anything like this one but the Czech’s sadness and loss were the same augmented fifth now that they must have been then and Rodney wanted to ask Radek if it always hurt but the buzzing wouldn’t let him and he realized with a jolt of terror that he had no last words this time and it didn’t matter because he’d come to understand that the only person he wanted to say them to was going to be dead a good ten minutes before he was and now the buzzing muted itself just enough for him to hear Carson say something and Radek answer and Elizabeth said “Rodney” but it sounded like John and he ignored it because he wanted John’s words to stay his own because they were all he had left and he needed to sit down but he was afraid of falling and he didn’t care when the buzzing roared up again before he could hear what it was Elizabeth’s John-voice needed to tell him... 

* * * * * * *  
The End 


End file.
